Hi. I understand that iPad's are fantastic for autistic kids. My son had an assistive technology evaluation which strongly recommended an iPad for him. But of course, the school has not come through. I'm wondering if anyone knows of any financial assistance or discounts, etc. available for parents of autistic children.
My son was introduced to an iPad that his speech teacher has, and he is absolutely obsessed with it. Forget computers, now he just wants an iPad!
Can anyone steer me in the right direction? Thanks!
P. S.: I'm not in the habit of using forums, so please bear with me. Also, what are tags?

Hello. Not sure about financial assistance, but there are some giveaways for parents of children with autism. The 'HollyRod' organization and ' Let's chat autism'.

My wife is a Speech Therapist, and the iPad has been tremendous in therapy. She was so impressed as a therapy tool that she created her own app for therapy. When you do get your iPad, please take a look. It is called "Speech with Milo: Verbs". You can find a demo of it on YouTube.

Thank you so much! I will check into your suggestions and I really appreciate them. Also, kudos to your wife for caring so much about her kids! I look forward to seeing her demo. Thanks for taking the time to reply. Best wishes, Linda

My son prefers the iPOD touch to the iPAD. It is easier to handle. He prefers the better speakers in the iPAD, but is not a fan of the weight. When traveling, all things equal, he prefers the iPOD touch. At home he usually prefers the iPOD touch, but once in a while will go to the iPAD. When he does this I set it up on the stand and he appreciates that he does not have to hold it up to view the screen.

He PDD/NOS non-verbal) has a Vantage Speech Augmentation Device. At home he browses the web, pokes about YouTube, snoops my directories, even hacked into the neighbors some time back (got a firewall to keep him in now) and took to the iPOD touch instantly (and won't give it back). Conversely at school, they have worked diligently for years, given enormous resources and at last report he could not handle a screen with a dozen icons and could not reliably do the finger sweep to keep the screen saver away.

In other words, he loves the iPOD touch and without training is facile with it. The difference is that the Speech Augmentation Device is clumsy and does not serve his needs (it is amazingly complex and even the experts struggle with basic things). The iPOD touch fills real needs and he is fine with high levels of complexity (it has dozens of videos and I removed the icons, so he has to read the titles ;^).

On a related note, he took to the AppleTV with a little explanation as to how the remote worked. I saw him try the remote on the iPAD... it seemed a nice idea.

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